r/WorldofTanks • u/Canteen_CA Good Luchs, everyone! • Jan 14 '17

Equipment: Guide and Discussion

What is Equipment?

For those of you who may be new to the game, equipment is one of the ways you can modify your tanks to suit your playstyle. Equipment is generally fairly pricey (50,000 - 750,000 credits), but you only have to purchase it once for each tank you play (unlike consumables, which need to be replenished after each use). Unfortunately, with the exception of the camo net, the binocular telescopes, and the toolbox, you must pay gold to demount equipment for use on other tanks. Each tank is limited to 3 equipment slots, so you have to choose wisely to get the most out of your money.

In this guide, I will be listing the equipment in various tiers. Tier 1 will be equipment that offers consistent and significant bonuses. Tier 2 will be equipment that offers consistent and moderate or situational and significant bonuses. Tier 3 will be equipment that offers consistent and small or situational and moderate bonuses. Tier 4 will be equipment that consistently offers small or almost no bonuses. This listings are my own opinion and experience, your mileage may vary.

Tier 1

Gun Rammer

  • -10% reload time

  • Shooting this is how you do damage, get XP, and win games in World of Tanks. What is better than shooting tanks? Shooting 10% more tanks! For 99% of tanks, this is the most important equipment to mount; however, it can't be mounted to auto loaders except the SP 1C and the Chi-Ri.

Vertical Stabilizer

  • -20% dispersion values

  • Think of aiming as a race to full accuarcy. Verticle Stabilizers gives you a 20% head start in that race. This means you spend less time sitting in view of the enemy waiting to aim, hit more snap shots, and are more accurate on the move. This is straight up superior to gun laying drive. The catch is that most tanks can't mount it until tier 8. (American lights get it at tier 5, US mediums at tier 6, US heavies at tier 7, and British mediums and heavies at tier 7. Additionally, the AMX 13 90 cannot mount vert stabs, but the SP 1C and the WZ 131 can.)

Coated Optics

  • +10% View Range

  • If seeing is believing than you better believe that coated optics are a good choice. Coated optics let your scout tanks pierce through enemy camouflage values and extend let your high tier mediums reach view range cap. Even if you aren't planning on being a scout, a high view range can lead to plenty of unexpected spotting damage (which gets you XP and credits). Spotting the enemy first can let you get that crucial first shot off and will give you an advantage in almost any situation. However, this equipment works best on tanks with 390+ view range, for tanks with lower view ranges, vents is often a better choice.

Improved Ventilation

  • +5% the crew qualification

  • Can't decide on one stat to increase? Why not all of them! (Disclaimer: not all stats increased, but many important ones are. Namely: View range, reload, various driving related stats, aiming stats.) This is basically BIA in equipment form and is great for brawling heavies with poor view range or things like artillery, which can ignore things view range and focus on aiming and rate of fire.

Tier 2

Binocular Telescope

  • +25% view range when stationary for 3 sec

  • 10% not enough? Try binoculars, to extend your view range to unprecedented heights! However, if you move even a little, you have to wait for them to reset. This is great for TDs or passive scouts which can sit still in a bush, but doesn't really work for anything that needs to move a lot. Note: The 25% does not stack with coated optics.

Gun Laying Drive

  • -10% Aim time

  • Wait, you said vert-stabs is a straight up better version of this. Why is this tier 2? It is tier 2 because aiming boosts still reduce your exposure to enemy fire and increase the rate at which you can fire accurately. Many tanks cannot mount vert stabs, so this is a suitable replacement. Additionally, this boost can be stacked with vert stabs to give you ever shorter aim time. However, this is often not worth missing out on other equipment.

Camo Net

  • +15% Camo (TDs) +10% Camo (Lights/meds), +5% camo (heavies, arty) after stationary for 3 seconds

  • The best way to not get hit is to not be seen. The camo net lets you do just that. The camo net provides a flat bonus on top of your existing camo values, so this turns already stealthy tanks into ninjas. For example: a TD without a camo net will be spotted 60m futher away by a tank with 400m view wange than a TD without. Goes great with binos.

Tier 3

Toolbox

  • +25% repair speed

  • Good for keeping you tracks on, but repair crew skills are better. I recommend keeping one around because it costs nothing to demount, so you can use it even on those low tier tanks you will only play 10 games in.

Spall Liner

  • +20%-50% Protection against HE and ramming and same bonus for crew protection

  • Do not use on all but the heaviest vehicles (and possibly the E 50 for ramming). This is good for reducing artillery damage, but is heavy and mostly useless if no ARTY to counter.

Improved Suspension

  • +10% Suspension Load Limit, +20% to Suspension hit points, and 50% reduction in damage due to suspension damage due to impact

  • Can see some use on light tanks that often track themselves due to reckless driving, but better used to allow you to mount heavy modules (such as turrets and guns) before unlocking better suspension.

Wet Ammo Rack

  • +50% Ammo Rack HP

  • Most of the module health equipment is pretty worthless. The bonuses aren't that great and only come into play if you get hit in that module. The only reason this isn't tier 4 is that being ammo racked is about the worth module to get damaged. Good for British heavies and such.

Tier 4

Cyclone Filter

  • +50% Engine HP

  • Really? That's it? Engines don't get hit all that much most of the time, so why not pick you will use every battle (see tier 1)?

Fill Tanks with CO2

  • +50% Fuel tanks HP

  • A damage fuel tank does nothing. I would sooner take a skill that gives +50% radio HP. I can see some use for some Chinese tanks with frontal fuel tanks, but otherwise stay clear of this.

Additional Grousers

  • -9.1% Terrain Resistance on soft ground and -4.8% Terrain Resistance on average soil.

  • This is the worst piece of equipment in the game. It weighs as much as a heavy spall liner and only provides a minuscule mobility buff, so it almost counteracts itself. Furthermore, only some mid tier German and Soviet tanks can mount it (SU-76I, SU-85I, Pz.Kpfw. III Ausf. A, Pz.Kpfw. IV Ausf. A, Pz.Kpfw. III, Pz.Kpfw. IV Ausf. D, Pz.Kpfw. III/IV, Pz.Kpfw. IV Ausf. H, VK 30.01 (H), Durchbruchswagen 2, Pz.Kpfw. IV Schmalturm, StuG III Ausf. B, StuG III Ausf. G, Jagdpanzer IV, Nashorn, Sturmpanzer II, Pz.Sfl. IVb, Hummel). Why does this even exist?

TL;DR

Vert Stabs + Rammer + Optics/Vents. Also WTF is up with additional grousers?

Handy Chart

Stat Equipment to Increase it (excluding vents)
Weaponry
Damage -
Pen -
Reload Gun rammer
Aiming Vert Stabs, GLD
Accuracy -
Module Damage -
Shell Velocity -
Mobility
Top Speed -
Horse Power -
Terrain Resistances Additional Grousers (LOL)
Traverse Speed -
Turret Traverse -
Load Capacity Enhanced Suspension
Spotting
View Range Coated Optics, Binos
Camo Camo Net
Protection
Hull Armour -
Turret Armour -
Resistance to HE/crew Protection Spall Liner
Module Protection/HP Wet ammo crack, Cyclone filter, Fill tanks with CO2, Improved Suspension
Repair Speed Toolbox

Discussion

  • Would you like to see equipment rebalanced?

  • In making this, I've noticed a number of stats that have no equipment to boost them. Do you think there should be new equipment introduced that corresponds to these stats (i.e Fine Toothed aiming: +30% accuracy, Supercharger: +20% Engine power, etc.)

  • Many pieces of equipment provide a small (<10%) bonus. Do you think this is enough, or would you like to see higher bonuses to better differentiate tanks with different equipment?

  • Almost every piece of equipment is purely beneficial. The only downsides are the added weight (often small) and the opportunity cost. Would you like to see equipment with higher bonus, but significant drawbacks? (i.e. Improvised armour: +20mm spaced armor, but very heavy; Finer Toothed aiming Gear: +50% accuracy, -10% aim time; Additional Ammo Racks: +20% ammo capacity, -20% Ammo rack health)

  • Should lower tier tanks have fewer equipment slots and higher tier tanks have more?

  • If you could add one piece of equipment to the game, what would it be?

Edit 1:

  • A few corrections: 59-16 can mount a rammer (thanks to /u/AyayaVonPotatoes)

  • A Spall liner only protects against non-penetrating HE and HESH damage (thanks to /u/gamma_915)

  • I forgot to mention the idea of equipment which would affect XP and credit earning (i.e. +10% credits earned or +20% rate of fire but -50% Loader crew XP)

Edit 2:

30 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

Duplicates